Mark Strong: Prosaic Exceptionalism

Gallery: Studio 238

Meet the Artist: July 6th , 4 – 6pm

The Harwood Museum of art is pleased to announce the exhibition of prints by local printmaker Mark Strong. This three week Studio 238 Pop-Up exhibition reveals the colorful and contemporary imagery of the detritus of our surroundings. From beer cans to matchbooks, the banal becomes celebrated in the delicate process of Strong’s hand carved prints.

Relief printing is a basic, but not necessarily easy, process. Strong states, “You pretty much get out what you put into it. I enjoy the challenge of producing a contemporary image using medieval technology.”

One of his objectives is to produce an image, though small, that you can see from across the room. His influences range from TV and the Sunday Comics to the Great Masters. He composes with everyday objects and literally what is at hand, with many objects from roadside finds while walking his dog. Strong produces these creations without a formal studio; he carves his blocks at the dinner table and prints in the garage.

Strong writes, “I’ve experimented with several (types of printing materials) but personally prefer carving wood. My tools are limited, after transferring an image in reverse to a block of Poplar wood I carve with an X-Acto knife and magnifying glasses. Each color requires its own block and a trip through my hand-operated Challenge flatbed cylinder press to build up the finished image. My subject matter is a shout out to everyday life.”

Mark C. Strong was born 1949 in Wellington, Texas and grew up in Artesia, New Mexico working the farms and oil field. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Anthropology/Sociology from Eastern New Mexico University in 1971. Upon graduation he plied his pipefitting skills on major construction projects from Alaska to Louisiana and between jobs did salvage archaeology for New Mexico State University. In the mid-1970’s Strong moved to Taos and secured a position with Columbine Printing. This position enabled him to pursue in depth a lifelong interest in printing, first sparked in elementary school using potatoes and finger paint to produce relief prints. When the print shop evolved into an Internet service provider Mark took his skills to a local natural food store as head purchaser. Retiring in 2016 Mark fills his days with household chores and printing multicolor woodcuts on a hand operated Challenge flatbed cylinder press. Mark’s prints are in numerous private collections and in the Harwood Museum of Art permanent collection. He is currently represented by 203 Fine Art in Taos, New Mexico.

A Meet the Artist event is scheduled for July 6sth from 4-6pm and is free and open to the public.
For more information, contact the Harwood Museum of Art at 575.758.9826 x 109 or go to harwoodmuseum.org.

Studio 238 is a pop-up gallery exhibition at the Harwood Museum of Art offering contemporary local artists an opportunity to show their work. These rotating one-month exhibitions provide a space for new series of works, experimental or traditional, to both established and emerging local artists.